One Step Ahead of the Plot
FIVE DAYS AND COUNTING TILL WE MOVE OUT
In real life, we're counting down to the move. I've had everything packed for about a week or more, but this Saturday we load up the car. Sunday, before morning, we travel back to University! I'm so excited. What's on the docket when we get back, you ask?1. Writing - CURSE YOU SVEN
2. Drawing with Photoshop - w00t!
3. Firefly - Need I say more?
4. Starcraft (lots) - Ditto because we lurv the scifi
5. Decorating! - Don't worry, I'll take pictures. Be assured it will be quite a lot of fun.
The Sweaty World of SvenI would consider the whole "prophecy/oracle" tropes one of the great negative aspects of fantasy. Almost all of the stories I've read which deal in prophecies are very poorly written. They do a few things that annoy me.
The Few Things
1. They give away certain plot surprises I'm sure I would otherwise enjoy.2. In giving the prophecy, it seems like the author is giving up any attempt at subtlety or foreshadowing. Instead, he gives you a road map and says, "Now, hang on for the ride! See how cool it's going to be?!"
3. The prophecy is so vague or so mystical, it could mean anything and doesn't really help the story along at all.
Because of this, I am very tentative to try my hand at it, even to the point of maybe not adding this fifth character's POV for fear that he may be required to talk about what he sees. The strange thing about this character is that his past is infinitely more interesting than what he could see, and I think I might be able to play with the irony there. We'll see.
So say we all.
Bri
8 comments:
I can't wait for Starcraft 2 to come out! I really won't get any writing done when that happens. :)
It sounds like you have a good start on your story by knowning what you don't like. That will force you to stretch yourself. I can't wait to see what you end up with. :)
I'm trying to pretend Starcraft isn't coming out... I have too many demands on my time as it is. :)
Any post that has a Firefly image in it gets five stars in my book! *fangirl squee*
Prophecy/foresight can be tricky. Personally, I would avoid prophecy like the plague, out of fear of any echoes of Eddings floating through my work. Of course, now that I've said that I'm sure I'll feel the challenge to find a way to use prophecy effectively.
Foresight, on the otherhand, gives you a bit more wiggle room. I had a character in an RP with foresight (sort of) and it gave a nice dramatic weight to the choices he made, even knowing what the outcome would be. The trick is to not let the audience know everything the character knows, and also throw in a chance of mistake. Knowledge of the future can change it, I think, so things may not play out exactly as the character thought it would.
Prophecies, though, seem doomed to be fulfilled no matter how much people try to avoid them -- or even BECAUSE people try to avoid them. Very limiting. Which is why the "prophecy" in Harry Potter was pretty lame, when you think about it. Certainly not worth Sirius getting axed.
Prophecy is like magic. If you don't have limitations, both comes close to deus ex machina.
The rules you impose on both magic and prophecy are what make the story sing, IMO. If you work within the rules and logic of your created world, you should be okay. If prophecy exists in your world, but only under certain circumstances, and/or with certain limitations, I think prophecy can add something rather than take something away.
In the case of your fifth character, if he sees fragments of the future, the chance of misinterpreting those fragments would be high. Okay, he sees something that will happen in the future, and thinks it's one way, when in reality, it's another. Ex: he thinks he sees the murder of a friend when, in reality, someone will kill the friend in self-defense. Rough, but you get the idea.
Wishing you a safe and pleasant move.
Looking forward to those decorating pics.
Frances
Sven? Who is this Sven entity?
If you want a brilliant example of how to make a prophecy really work for the story, read the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy by Tad Williams.
Genre fantasy, but beautifully written, and plays a bit with the trope. I'm not going to tell you how, tho', that's too much of a spoiler. :-)
China Mieville's latest, Un Lun Dun (a kids' book) also plays a fairly hefty trick with prophecy.
Aside from just plain playing against the trope (as those two do), I've seen good 'prophecy' stories that work well when you have the characters (and author) absolutely kicking themselves because something suddenly makes sense after the fact when they've been assuming it meant something else all along. To make it feel like the characters have complete free will - and are trying to escape it all - only to have the steel doors clang shut after the fact. You can almost make it the antagonist.
But if I were to write prophecy based story (and I do have such a story in mind) I would subvert it utterly.
(Clearly, I meant 'and reader', not 'and author'. An author trapped by their own prophecy is an interesting idea, tho'...)
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